


Sparring Partners

by 1nsomnizac



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/M, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:00:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26059918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1nsomnizac/pseuds/1nsomnizac
Summary: Karkat Vantas and Nepeta Leijon are two non commissioned officers in Feferi's rebel army. Their enduring rivalry sparks a caliginous flame.
Relationships: Nepeta Leijon/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18
Collections: Drone Season 2020





	Sparring Partners

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NepetasDisciple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NepetasDisciple/gifts).



> This is my first time doing a drone season fill! User NepetasDisciple requested a NepKat fic which focused on the rivalry between the two.

The air conditioners spit freon-cooled air into the hall of the dojo. The cool air falls into the room like ice cubes into a swimming pool and cools the space just as inefficiently. Trainees loiter along the walls beneath the vents and revel in cool moving air, while still air, hot and humid, lingers over the mats.

Conversations end. Murmuring voices trail off. The cooling machines hum away, oblivious. Your opponent is not oblivious. He feels the eyes of his subordinates on him. He smiles like he believes that this match will be easy to win. He knows that it is not. You know that it is not. He knows that you know that it is not. It is a taunt, you know that it is a taunt, but he knows it will get under your skin anyway.

Your legs tense. The spring coils. Your heels leave the mat, your weight rests on the balls of your feet. Suddenly, the coiled spring is let loose; You leap forward and strike. Your left arm flies forward.

One of Vantas’s arms knocks the blow aside, the other shoots out toward your right shoulder. You break left, towards your first strike, and his sickle misses.

You fall on the mat and roll into a sweeping kick. Vantas jumps back. You hop back on your feet just as he swipes at you again.

Vantas steps forward, thrusting first his right-hand sickle then his left, pressing you back. “Come on,” he shouts as you fall back, knocking his blows away, “come on, come on, come on! Is that the best you got, Leijon?”

Vantas thrusts forward with his left again, and this time _you_ grin. You step forward, catch Karkat by his left sleeve with one hand, and go for his face with the other. His eyes go wide, and you can almost see the reflection of the spikes of your knuckle dusters in his yellow sclera.

Vantas lifts his left leg, the one under his captured arm, and falls backward. His left foot hits you in the abdomen, right inside your right hip. He cannot kick hard enough to do serious injury, not without leverage he does not have, but the impact is painful, and you drop him.

Vantas falls on the mat and rolls. He lacks the grace of your roll, your fluidity, but he gets out of your immediate range without incident and gets up quickly. The confident grin he had only seconds ago has been replaced by his signature scowl.

You wag your eyebrows. “Is that the best _you_ got, Vantas?” you tease. The difference between smiling and bearing one’s teeth is the degree of tension in the rest of the face. Vantas bares his teeth.

He doesn’t charge in, though. You can tell that he wants to. The dilation of his pupils, the little vein throbbing in his temple, the nearly subsonic growl and the whiff of pheromones coming off of his skin all tell you that you stand before a frustrated troll, a male animal being slowly worked into a frenzy by the presence of a rival who does not submit.

How delicious the scent of wounded pride! How melodious the sound of frustrated ego! How beautiful the sight of wary eyes! Karkat’s eyes are a clear window, and you can almost see the gears turn behind them.

Some trolls get sadistic at this stage. Inside their minds, planning to defeat you devolves into fantasizing about dominating you. Other trolls begin to panic. Planning to defeat you devolves into anticipating their own defeat. You have seen both in the eyes of opponents plenty of times, but never in the eyes of Karkat Vantas. He stays professional. He is arrogant and bossy and loud, but he always takes you seriously.

You circle to your left, and he circles in turn, never showing you his side, never showing you his back. He spins the sickle in his left hand. You have noticed that motion before, whenever a break in the combat stretches on for longer than half a minute, a nervous tick perhaps. Karkat Vantas is not a hunter like you are. He lacks a hunter’s patience.

He steps forward into a skipping side kick. You dodge out of the way, shocked. It is not a move that is easy to pull off with a weapon in each hand. His sickles jab out at you, one after another, and you are on the defensive again. He attacks faster than before so that you cannot just grab his arm like last time without leaving yourself open. You can block every attack he makes when he presses you like this, but he keeps you confined, forces you to fight him head-on, where the reach of his sickles gives him an advantage. You need to keep moving, get out of the corridor he has made for you.

He pulls back a thrust to your left side and you try to dodge left. His right jab crosses his body to attack you there. The attack is slow, since it changes directions, and could only hit you in the chest with the bladeless outer edge of the sickle, but you instinctively pull back towards the center. Karkat swings with his right across in a decapitating sweep.

You drop under it but feel the inside curve of the blade enter the shaggy mane of your hair. You extend your fists forward, driving you knuckle dusters into his kidneys even as his left arm comes down to obstruct your vision.

“Match,” says the mat attendant, “suicidal victory to Staff Sergeant Leijon.”

The trainees on the sidelines hoot and holler and yell. Vantas sags a little and pulls his wooden sickle out of your hair, after which you pull your wooden knuckle dusters back from his abdomen and stand back up. He rubs his abdomen over one of the impact sites and hisses “fuck.” You put your hand over the spot where his foot nailed you earlier. You can practically feel the bruise forming.

You both come to attention and bow. Vantas shifts his sparring weapons to one hand and says, “Good match, Leijon. But I think next time, I’ll win handily.”

You snort. “If you think that I will let you press me into a single line of attack the next time we spar, you’ve got another think coming… Karkitty.”

His eyes narrow. “One of these days,” he says softly, “I’m going to make you retire that stupid nickname.”

You grin evilly. “Purr-haps,” you reply, “but not today, Karkitty.”

You turn and saunter to the side of the hall where your newbies are waiting.

* * *

The shower water is lukewarm rather than hot, but you do not wait for the temperature to rise. It rarely does. Water falls over your shoulders, over your hair, over the tough segments of thick armored skin, into the valleys of sweaty and flexible skin around them, into the reddish fields of battle scars. Two sweeps of war have seeped into your flesh, but lukewarm water only coats the surface.

You pick up a sponge and begin scrubbing. As you move the coarse calcite mass over your skin in familiar motions, your tension begins to ease. The water begins working its way through your thick hair, getting closer to the scalp. Your skin stops protesting the low temperature.

You sigh. The body is content, but the mind is not. A pair of bruises greet you when you look down over your body, a memento of failure. You remember how trapping her exhilarated you, you almost had her, but then she dropped, and all that exhilaration became a far less pleasant feeling. You should have known she would do that. The low-body style of martial arts she uses makes frequent use of ducking attacks. Plus, you overextended yourself by attacking with one hand before the other hand was ready to defend. _Next time_ , you think, _next time…_

Nepeta Leijon annoys you. In her youth, she hunted the giant monsters of Alternia and fought them, killed them, and ate them. A one-troll war for survival, and as an adult her bravery and skill let her rapidly rise in the enlisted ranks of Feferi’s rebel army. A lifetime of propaganda has told you that the willingness to bleed to achieve victory is the spirit of trollkind, and she embodies that spirit perfectly. Even the officers, mostly highbloods with grudges against the Eternal Empress or her current favorites, seem to respect her skills in battle.

Nepeta Leijon annoys you. In your youth, you trained alone inside your house and avoided open combat so that no one would see you bleed. So that no one would see the mutant color of your blood. So that you were safe from your society. So that you would never have to wage a one-man war for survival like Nepeta Leijon fought on every hunt.

You have to make yourself better than her.

You set down the sponge and run your fingers through your hair. The top strands are wet, but troll hair is thick, and you need to manually work the water in and around the strands. The sensation always reminds you of your first lover, the showers you would take together, how you two would run your fingers through each other’s hair. It was nice.

It is almost pailing season again, you realize. The drones do not come onto rebel bases to cull the celibate, but most rebels participate anyway. You consider whether anyone has stirred concupiscent feelings in you.

Your mind drifts back to Nepeta Leijon. You try to shake it aside, but the idea has claws and the claws are in deep. She is strong and brave and the war has not fucked up her face as much as it fucked up yours. Her natural scent is agreeable enough. But she gets under your skin. She frustrates you so badly, you just want to… hm. Your subconscious generates some very agreeable ideas in the blink of an eye, visions of claws and teeth and naked flesh.

Oh.

It has been a while since you have gone pitch for anyone. You resume washing your hair and wonder how you missed all the signs.

* * *

Senior noncommissioned officers such as yourself do not usually get private showers in their billet. That is an officer thing, a highblood thing. Existing bases that the rebellion liberated from condescension did not have that many private facilities, and the experienced officers who defected were not interested in sharing privilege with the lowly sergeants and lance corporals.

The enlisted ranks make do with less like they always do. The noncoms clear out of the public showers after such and such a time, so that the platoon leaders can divvy up time to get the showers to themselves.

The enlisted showers are right next to the training hall. An economical placement, like usual. But it means that as you approach the door, the sounds of music and exertions make themselves known, and your heart sinks a little. It is late, close to local dawn, and you expected the building to be empty. How disappointing! You shake off your disquiet. At least you’ll have the showers to yourself.

You open the door and walk inside. There is only one person in the training area, pummeling a boxing dummy in the corner, and at first you do not recognize them, until you see the pink scar running down his back.

“Sergeant Vantas,” you say, “why am I not surprised?”

Vantas turns, and the utterly unapologetic smirk gets to you. You wonder how you managed to feel red for him when you were six sweeps old, when everything he does makes you want to smack him.

He is hot. Your taste has matured since you were six sweeps old. At six sweeps, you found his pristine, unscarred skin captivating, and his boyish softness inviting. These days you appreciate a mature bone structure, and you see the appeal of battle scars. And that scar across his left cheekbone looks rather dashing.

You also appreciate his charisma. He stands up for himself against the bigots on all sides, and he has earned the loyalty of his squad and the grudging respect of his direct superiors with his courage.

But he acts so aloof. So arrogant. He keeps it in check around the officers, but he smirks at you and goads you even though you technically outrank him. You are not one to pull rank, but the way he almost dares you to do it gets you.

You’re pitch, all right, a nice bubbling black tar sits in your heart and stirs whenever he speaks to you like that—

You bring yourself down. It is drone season, and your lust pheromones will be easier for him to detect, and if he detects your feelings but does not reciprocate, well—

“Staff Sergeant Leijon,” he replies, “I don’t keep my training habits a secret.”

“Well, I have the showers tonight, so shove off.”

“No,” he says simply, almost casually. It pisses you off. “If you want to use the showers, use them. I won’t be done for a while yet.”

You stalk forward without thinking about it. “Listen, Vantas,” you say, “my recon squad is getting deployed tomorrow night, so why don’t you perform your little self-flagellation session when I’m not here.”

He puffs up at that and starts moving your way. “Self-flagellation?”

“Did you think that you could hide it from me?” You smirk at him. “You lost in front of your troops and now you are up at odd meowers punching a person-shaped lump of plastic.”

His teeth are clenched like he is fighting the urge to grind them. “Nice analysis, Psychoterrorist Froyyd,” he bites out, “but you missed by a mile.”

“I hit it hard and true.”

“You missed.”

“No. I nailed you.”

“You didn’t nail me.”

“Yes, I pegged you good, Vantas,” you say, and his expression tells you he has not missed the sexual double meanings in your back and forth.

“Do you want to know why I’m doing this? It’s to beat you! I want to wipe that infuriating grin off your face!”

He’s right in your face now, and there’s something about him, the impossibly subtle scent of pheromones, the dilation of his eyes, the heat in the soft skin under his eyelids which kills your reluctance, your hesitation. You’re going to make a play.

* * *

“I want to wipe that infuriating grin off your face!”

Her eyebrows rise, then fall back down as she slowly blinks. A smile spreads across her face, noticeably different from the condescending smirks you normally exchange with her. You don’t know what she is thinking, and all of a sudden that worries you.

“All right then, Mister Vantas,” she purrs, and all of a sudden you are aware of your body, and the scents that might be coming off of it. “Do you want to have a rematch? Right nyaa~ow? You won’t get another chance until I’m back from the front.”

Yes, you almost blurt out, before your caution reigns you in. What does she get out of this? No one else is around, so the fight will not improve her reputation, and you do not believe that she would plan to lose in secret, she has too much pride in her abilities, just like you. What other platonic reason might she have for offering you a private fight?

Unless she has a non-platonic reason to want to fight you alone.

The idea grabs you, excites you. Could she be waxing black for you, as well? You want to be cautious, you do not want to get your hopes up, but you can feel your body respond to the idea.

“I didn’t bring my weapons,” you say. You do not want to sound too eager.

Leijon chitters. Her smile bares a little more fang, her eyes droop a little more. “Neither did I,” she says, “I expected to be alone tonight. Let’s fight hand to hand.”

Yeah, you breathe, then louder, “yeah. Hand to hand. You’re on.”

You back up and take a position near the center of the mat. You flex your legs restlessly and roll your wrist in anticipation. Leijon begins toward a spot opposite you, and raises her hand to her collar. One by one, she pops the clasps that hold her undress uniform to her torso. “I have to walk back in this,” she says, “so I don’t think I’ll let you get this sweaty.”

She shrugs off the upper garment, and your bloodpusher starts moving like your thorax is a mosh pit. You say, “don’t blame me if one of your rumblespheres falls out of that chestholder,” and immediately regret it as Leijon raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t think you need to worry, Karkitty,” she smirks, “I can pin you to the mat with my spheres out.”

Your heart is moshing to heavy metal, now. Nepeta Leijon takes her stance opposite you, and the match begins.

You make the first move. One step forward. Two. Three. Your right arm snakes out. She knocks it to the side. Left arm out.

She blocks with an arm in front of her torso, and grabs your right with it when it strikes at her again. She pulls your arm down and to the side as she strikes with her left, forcing you to use your left to block so she doesn’t hit you in the face. She drops your right and swings her back leg forward in a kick.

you step back with one foot and block the blow with a low arm before kicking at her in turn. She leans back out of the arc of your foot then leans forward into a grab, holding you by the waist of your pants and the shoulder of your tank top and pulling you off balance. As you fall you grab her arms and pull her down.

You come down on your sides, but she is the quicker to react, rolling over you until you are on your back, looking up into her smug, grinning face. You are very aware of her now, very aware of how close her body is, how the heat of her body is radiating toward you, how very aware you are that her lips are so close to yours, that if she wanted to, she could bite you, lick you, kiss you…

She bends her head down and to the side, and for a moment you think that she has somehow found out how weak you are to nibbles along the jaw, and that she is about to go in for the kill.

“Is that all you got, pussycat,” she breathes into your ear, “don’t tell me you’re a fast shot.”

You are now very aware of how much this woman pisses you off. With a growl you grab her shoulders and roll to the right, pulling a satisfying sound of surprise from her lips and reversing your position. You look down into her eyes and you see something of the hunger you have for her reflected in her bright eyes. You lean down and kiss her, first gently so you don’t bang your head on hers. Her lips are hot and soft, and you can feel the cleft in her lips against your own mouth as you kiss her. She keeps the kiss going, slipping her tongue into your mouth, feeling around for vulnerable spots until you have to come up for air.

“I fucking,” you pant, “hate you.”

She giggles and looks you in the eye. “I know.”

You feel your heart skip a beat when she looks at you and says, “showers?”

* * *

Clothes come off. His eager hands paw at your chestholder and undoes its clasp. Your fingers slide under his waistband and explore his ass. Fingers ghost over your skin; he doesn’t know where your sensitive spots are, but he has some educated guesses and he soon finds some very exploitable weaknesses on his new hate-mate. His kisses are overwhelming, his tongue domineering, as if he wants to win this match as well. It turns you on.

But that does not mean that you will make it easy for him. Where is the fun in that?

You reach the showers and turn the water on. The water is warm right from the start on this base, but not hot. Either extreme takes a few minutes. Water pours over your two bodies, each beating with the heat of lust, and the water feels almost cool, though not enough to chill your desire. You lock lips beneath the stream. Your teeth find his lower lip and you bite, drawing a snarl from him which you feel in your nether regions. He claws at your back, his talons scrabbling at the thick skin over the shoulder blades. You scratch his back as he scratched yours, and you can feel your claws dig into his scar deep enough to bleed. His snarl is far less hot this time, a reaction to unwelcome pain, and you coo into his mouth smack him on his ass to draw his attention back to you.

He gropes one of your tits in a wholly selfish sort of way. You draw your hands over the scratch on his back and bring fingers pink with his diluted blood up to your lips and lick them slowly right in front of your face. He growls; neither of you have spoken for a while, yet you communicate. He narrows his eyes, then brushes his fingers against your inner thigh. You gasp, and he brings fingers green with your slick up to his lips and licks them with a smile. You bring your own fingers up his inner thigh, and you can feel his own diluted slick as well.

You do not stop there. Instead you ghost your fingers higher and brush them across the lips of his nook. He trills, a lovely deep sound which fills your head with mating fondness. You look at his face, and you simply know that you are about to mate with him. It stops being a rational understanding of your actions as it was before, but something else, like trust in the promise of a friend, or faith in the word of a god. Truth.

As you tease him, his bulge stirs and slides out, wrapping around your hand, the beautiful color of flushed love, used to fuck his caliginous lover. There is something so perverse, so dirty, so hot about that.

You reach down to your own slit to get your own bulge out, but he grabs your hand and pins it above your head. You whine, and he presses his body against you, and as his crotch presses against yours, and as his bulge writhes pleasurably against the lips of your nook, you realize what his plan is.

Bulgestuffing is a kinky way to fuck, imitating mammals in heat, a bulge into a nook, rather than the more normal pailing. His bulge teases you, but doesn’t enter just yet, giving you time to refuse if you want to. When you look back at his face, there is a question in his eyes, even as a lightning bolt of pleasure jumps from your crotch to your brain. “Do it,” you pant.

He grins, and almost immediately the tip of his bulge finds your entrance. You moan as it eases its way inside, and as your body slowly opens up to allow it to enter you.

You start to lose the ability to stand, but Karkat holds you against the wall, and lets go of your arm and clutches your thighs after he feels you start to slip. He brings his hips forward slowly, helping to push more of his length into you. You are so lost in the feeling of being filled that you barely notice how much he is moaning too. He moves his hips in and out and his bulge moves around inside you in a motion which starts slow and slowly builds speed. As he does you start to feel your seedflap engorge, and feel something building inside you. His bulge seems to pulse inside of you, beating like a heart. He’s close too.

“I’m—I’m getting close,” you moan, “Karkat, I’m getting close.”

“Me too,” he says, panting, “I’m almost…”

Heat and tension builds. You wrap your arms around him and hang on, not trusting your legs to hold you up when the moment comes. His bulge starts to pulse more forcefully than before, more than you imagined it could. The pressure behind your seedflap builds until you can barely hold it back. Suddenly, he cries out and comes, spilling hot slurry inside you. This in turn causes your internal dam to burst, releasing a flood of green and a cry of your own.

The two of you sink to the floor of the showers. The water hits your skin and washes the pool of green and red slurry leaking out of you toward the drain. The feeling flooding your brain is druglike, an afterglow which dulls even the harsh light and tile floor of a public shower into a place of peace. Your rival looks at you, and you can tell he feels the same.

“You let me win that time,” he says. He is still in the embrace of afterglow and is not annoyed or grumpy.

“Don’t expect me to do it again,” you say, “you have to perform weakness to draw an apelion out of hiding.”

“How long were you hunting me?”

“win our next match and maybe I’ll tell you.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1/6/2021: Fixed some typographical errors. Oops!


End file.
